UPDATE, POST-WISCONSIN: This TPM Veracifier video makes the point better than a mere blog diary can:

Nuff said…

We’ve all seen it happen before: the leader in a primary “ganged up on” by the trailers. Kerry and Gephardt did it rather crudely to Dean four years ago in Iowa, the pile-ons against Mitt Romney in this go-around’s GOP contest. But I’ve never seen it happen quite this way. NYT on Friday:

“It was very clear to me that Senator Obama had agreed to having public financing of the general election campaign if I did the same thing,” [Republican candidate John McCain] said after a town hall meeting here. “I made the commitment to the American people that if I was the nominee of my party, I would go the route of public financing. I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well.”

TPM today:

the Clinton campaign “hammered rival Barack Obama on Sunday for refusing to reaffirm his commitment to accept public financing in the general election, a development a top aide criticized as “a pretty big flip-flop” and an opening for Republican attack.”… The issue isn’t public financing, the Clinton campaign says, it’s the flip-flop. “That’s not change you can believe in,”

Obama has received a lot of criticism (and rightly so) for using right-wing talking points on progressive policies and Democratic issues, lending that rhetoric further credibility and helping prop up a conservative hegemony. In recent moths, however, he has thankfully started to move away from that nasty habit…

…so now we have the Clinton campaign, not onl jumping on board with a right-wing attack, but amplifying it, exploiting it, and then – with an ironic absurdity – leveraging it’s increased volume as a reason in and of itself to dent Obama the nomination.

WHile the Clinton campaign is entitled to use what lines of messaging it wants, this strikes me as another example of what many bloggers have referred to as “slash and burn” or “scorched Earth” politics. Informally (I assume) co-operating in message lockstep with GOP Nominee-in Waiting John McCain in a twisted synergy – allowing Clinton a rhetorical club to try and retake the momentum, while giving McCain renewed hope that he will have the Democratic opponent he obviously prefers.

Regardless of how it does or doesn’t play out in terms of the primary, such a coordinated attack with the McCain campaign only damages Democratic chances in the long run if Obama is the candidate, enhances McCain if it’s effective, and minimizes Democratic enthusiasm and greater momentum in November.

I mean, I know the Obama minions have been telling me ad nauseum that their candidate will magically bring Republicans and Democrats together, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind…

First of all, a couple public “thank yous” are in order. First of all, to folks who came to my birthday party – and to everyone who chipped in on the amazing birthday present for me… wow! Thanks… it was completely and totally unexpected and unprecedented, given that this was the first (and likely only) birthday party I’ve had as a grownup. I promise I’ll thank you all personally. Also a public thank you to Governor Dean for the birthday message (that had to be played video and audio separately due to some technical limitations, but it worked… in any event, it’s a keeper!).

On other positive developments that merit some thumbs ups… it seems that the Pollina camp may be concerned about bridge-building after all. There was a two-step response to the frustrations expressed in this diary from earlier in the week. First (yesterday), they adjusted their linked text to actually present the entire Reformer editorial which wasn’t at all as critical to Dems (and in particular to Peter Galbraith) as their edit left the impression (although the front page jab remained). Today? The poke-in-the-eye at the Dems is completely removed from the front page of AnthonyPollina.com, and has been replaced with a couple rhetorical jabs at the real opponent – Jim Douglas. Way to do the right thing, folks. If you really are serious about working with Dems, the less confrontational approach will be a lot more productive for you. Thanks.

And the biggest “thank you” of all goes to the US House of Representatives which (surprisingly) stepped up to the plate with the ultimate way to cut through the Gordian knot of amendments, Senate filibusters and cross-partisan deals regarding the renewal of extended FISA provisions that would have insulate the telephone companies (and the Bush administration) from any repercussions from the illegal wiretap program. The answer? Walk away, letting Bush and the GOP go apoplectic as the extended powers simply expired, leaving us all under the previous (and already quite far-reaching enough, thankyouverymuch) FISA regime. Add to that the (finally) aggressive pursuit of contempt charges against Bush administration officials who have refused to comply with subpoenas (and the extra step of passing a measure authorizing judicial action in the face of the anticipated refusal of Attorney General Mukasey to trouble himself with enforcing the contempt citations), and you have the kind of day in Washington we’ve all been so desperate for. Kudos to Rep. Welch and company. Lets hope they all notice that the world hasn’t fallen down around their ears after standing up to Bush, and maybe – just maybe – they’ll decide it’s something they can do on a more regular basis.

GMD is exactly two years old today. Been a lot of changes since our very first post, way back when. And most recently we’ve not only got the new look, but now you can buy cool crap through the cafe press link to the right.

So – how about a birthday game? The Vermont Democratic Party will be having their annual “David W. Curtis Leadership Awards” before too long. The award is given to activists and political leaders, and is named in honor of the late former VDP Chair David Curtis. Here’s an excerpt from his obituary at Mountain Pride Media:

He was a tireless advocate for civil rights and human rights in Vermont. In 1969, he was lead counsel in the case that struck down Vermont’s law against abortion. He served on the Board of Trustees of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Dismas House, Lambda Legal Defense Education Fund in Washington, D.C., Vermont CARES, and the Vermont PWA Coalition. David served as a member of the Burlington Human Rights Council and was a member of the Vermont Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission.

He received the Vermont ACLU Lifetime Achievement Award and Civil Liberties Award, and the NAACP Outstanding Service Award in 1990. The Vermont Coalition for Lesbian & Gay Rights recognized David with their Leadership Award. In 1996, he was the first recipient of the David W. Curtis Award, an award given by Vermont CARES for service to the AIDS community.

Among his many accomplishments were the co-founding of the Samara Foundation of Vermont, a charitable foundation created to support and strengthen the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities of Vermont. He remained vice-president at the time of his death. He was a founding member of the Vermont Women’s Health Center. David also served on the Board of Trustees of the American Civil Liberties of Vermont, Vermont National Abortion Rights Action League, and the AIDS Action Council in Washington D.C.

I started work at the VDP just a couple months or so after Curtis passed away, so I never knew him personally, but I was involved starting up this annual award that has become a tentpole for the state Dems.

So – who should get the awards this year? Nominations? Ideas?

Who’s been overlooked? Doug Racine? Ralph Wright? Francis Brooks?

Who are the long-time Democratic stalwarts who haven’t been honored? John Burgess? Judy Murphy? Barbara MacIntyre?

Who are the local people making a big difference who are always overlooked by the political insider crowd? Bill McKibben? Steve Benen?

What about Bernie Sanders? Hey – the Dem line was crossed with Jeffords, why not?

Who are we forgetting from the nonprofit community? C’mon – let’s hear some nominations (look after the flip for a list of previous winners)…

Previous winners: Scudder Parker, Tom and Linda Gray, Crea Lintilhac, Marcelle Leahy, Gaye Symington, Jeffry Taylor, Ned & Vi Coffin, Peter Welch, Margaret Lucenti, Peter Shumlin, Bill & Jane Stetson, Susan Bartlett, Jim Jeffords, Cindy Metcalf, Susan Murray, Beth Robinson, John Tracy, Jean Ankeney, Ralph Crippen, Howard Dean, Terry Ehrich, Pat Leahy, Bill Lippert, Carolyn Nissen, Holly Wilson, Phil Hoff, Madeleine Kunin, Leslie Williams, Billi Gosh

UPDATE: A reader emailed to make the point that this was NOT a fundraiser, and spent a sentence or two promoting the innate superiority of airport events… and then went on to complain about the Democratic presidential candidates. Whatever.

It’s the big day! GOP Presidential-nominee-lock John McCain is stopping by the Green Mountain State for another Vermont Republican-style fundraiser event. The kind he can walk to quickly from his plane and run back out as fast as possible without having to actually be in the state any longer than absolutely necessary. And while he is here, he’ll be safely bunkered away in the airport, secure in the knowledge he’ll be well insulated from Vermont and Vermonters.

I remember the last time there was such a GOP bunker style event – waaaaay back when VP Dick Cheney his-very-self was on hand, safely hidden away while about 200 of us protested at the gated entrance. Ah… good times.

And it was leaked footage from that Cheney event that was used in this little-seen campaign ad from the Clavelle for Governor campaign. Here, then, is that golden oldie, for your entertainment…

Hey, we can only hope, right? This from CBS:

Huckabee called the next several weeks “very intense weeks where a lot of delegates are at stake and a lot will be decided as far as the long term impact of where this process is going.” He listed North Carolina, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island on the short list of states he will be campaigning. He leaves for Wisconsin tomorrow.

A quick call to HuckHQ reveals that “there’s nothing set in stone yet,” but hey, things happen fast in this business. I know I’d love to see which Vermonters might show up at a Huckabee campaign event in Burlington. Somebody better alert the squirrels.

While the (in my opinion) unreliably anonymous (and verifiably out-of-state, corporate) politickervt (which may or may not be any more accurate a source of information than the original PoliticsVT, we shall see…) is trying to paint Anthony Pollina as some sort of John McCain in the temper department, claiming that he’s been hanging up the phone on Democratic leaders who aren’t sufficiently responsive to his candidacy, what draws my attention and is a bit more… er, dependably verifiable… is his website. One thing we can be certain of is the fact that Pollina has – finally – begun reaching out to more of the Democrats he claims to need and want supporting him (although some key, and obvious, Democratic leaders have still not been approached, by him or his proxies). Could we be finally starting to see signs of this new-Pollina, who knows he can’t demonize and vilify a whole swath of voters whose support he needs? His early rhetoric suggests that he no longer expects some mythical wave of heretofore unengaged voters to carry him to victory over the political rubble of the Democrats, but rather understands he needs their votes, and must therefore build bridges rather than burn them, all in the interests of overcoming the common enemy. Well, I sure hope so, but I couldn’t help but notice that, on his new improved (and very nice, I might add) campaign web page, there are no attacks, disparaging comments or otherwise comparative assaults on Jim Douglas or the Republicans.

That’s not to say somebody isn’t attacked, its just not Jim Douglas. Who is the only visible subject of scorn on the new-improved, bridge-building candidate Pollina’s website?

Democrats.

But you probably guessed that already. Ahhh, here we go again.

UPDATE: Still no change on the website. Given that many on Pollina’s team have now read this diary and the reactions, they could easily have pulled the diary by now if it wasn’t their intention to get in a cheap shot.

…and, as readers have pointed out, the Reformer story that the excerpt links to is… er… parsed, shall we say. Interestingly (or maybe not so much), the “more” link on Pollina’s site takes you to another page on the same site with the “complete” article – except that it’s not complete. It only includes the piece that puts down the Democratic Party, and in fact removes pieces from the beginning, middle and end, making for a very different read – with a very different point. Curious as to what they decided to exclude? Here’s an example of the very next paragraph, that immediately follows the line shown (“It is frankly amazing to us that the Vermont Democratic Party continues to flop around, totally unable to come up with a credible candidate to challenge Gov. James Douglas in November.”)It’s still available in Google’s cache:

But perhaps this is starting to change. Former ambassador Peter Galbraith of Townshend paid a visit to the Statehouse on Tuesday to speak to the House Democratic Caucus, and he was warmly received. Galbraith has expressed interest in running for governor, but so far he has taken his time in making a decision.

A Galbraith candidacy is an interesting possibility. His bona fides as a liberal are unquestioned. When your father is John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the towering economic and political figures of the 20th century, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

His ties to Vermont go back to his youth and the summers and vacations he spent on his family’s farm in Newfane. He’s not a native, but then again, neither is Douglas.

ANd of course, there is no suggestion of where it is in any way edited on Pollina’s site – no elispses or anything – just the word “excerpt” near the top. They’ve essentially re-crafted it as their own and presented it as a complete piece. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

The “status of forces” agreement currently being worked out between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government behind closed doors has a lot of Democrats and war opponents concerned. Despite assurances from Defense Secretary Gates that any agreement “will not contain a commitment to defend Iraq and neither will any strategic framework agreement” and that they “do not want, nor will we seek, permanent bases in Iraq”… well, let’s just say nobody’s ready to buy those kinds of assurances from Bushco anymore.

Rep. Peter Welch has joined with 19 of his colleagues to try and raise the profile of the issue and sound warning bells about some early indications that the final product, in fact, may not be consistent with Gates’s testimony (imagine that!). From the letter: Most disconcerting to us are the security-related obligations laid out in the Declaration of Principles, including a commitment to support “the Republic of Iraq in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats,” to provide “security assurances and commitments to the Republic of Iraq to deter foreign aggression,” to support Iraq “in its efforts to combat all terrorist groups” including “Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups regardless of affiliation,” and to support Iraq in “training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces.” Foremost amongst our concerns is that such terms will commit U.S. forces to combat any internal armed faction or external enemy that is deemed a threat by the al-Maliki government regardless of whether such action is clearly in our national interest. Also a matter of concern are indications that this agreement will further codify the immunities enjoyed by civilian contractors such as Blackwater, who have most recently been fingered for using chemical agents on Iraqi civilians and US troops in order to clear traffic for themselves.

The current US presence in Iraq is ostensibly under a United Nations mandate. It’s a fig leaf, obviously, but the Bush Administration is making moves to toss the fig leaf entirely and more directly, formally and intimately entangle the US with the Iraqi government (such as it is). This raises eyebrows to be sure – especially since it would run counter to the oft-expressed will of the public to disengage, rather than more tightly bind ourselves to the Iraqi quagmire, but it also flies in the face of the administration’s song and dance that we are always on the cusp of “standing down as the Iraqis stand up.”

Such an agreement could also put the new, incoming President into a far stickier situation in regards to implementing his or her own Iraqi policy (which – come on – is probably the intent).

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut introduced legislation in January to specifically demand that any such agreements be done in concert with Congress, and the bill has gathered 42 cosponsors. It’s currently been referred to the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Armed Services. The bill would have to pass, not be blocked by the GOP in the Senate, not get vetoed and then not be ignored by Bush to be meaningful, of course. Long odds, to put it mildly. Still, if it came to a full-on battle, Congressional Dems may also be able to make a Constitutional argument on the Congressional power to enter into treaties under Article II before the Supreme Court. You know, the Supreme Court which Bush has been stacking…

But even under the best of circumstances, the way Article II has shaken out historically is not promising. In November, Bush military adviser General Douglas Lute remarked that “We don’t anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress.” In other words: forget it, folks. If we wanna tie ourselves militarily and economically to Iraq in any way we please, we’re not gonna waste our time coming to you about it. In this particular case, Bush wouldn’t be ignoring Constitutional precedent, as it would seem that in historical practice and judicial interpretation, the Executive Branch has wide leeway on deciding what is and isn’t a treaty that it is obliged to get Senatorial approval on.

Unfortunately, that means this legislation is, at present, the only way to go.

Oy. It’s gonna be a long year.

The always interesting Talking Points Memo has a little newsbit about former candidate John Edwards’s meetings with the two remaining presidential contenders regarding an endorsement, which the aide claims is a 50-50 possibility at this point. What’s interesting is that, while campaign observers have cast the question of an Edwards endorsement in terms of what kind of deals the former Senator may or may not make for himself, the anonymous source suggests the question for Edwards is much more about the issues – and as such is a perfect mirror of the online discussions that his former supporters have been engaged in:

The aide says he talked about “who’s going to carry on the mantle of fighting for the voiceless,” and is trying to gauge which of the two “will sign their name in blood in order to make that commitment.”…

“He’s torn,” the aide said “He has reservations about Hillary, which are pretty apparent.”

On Obama, the aide says, Edwards worries “whether he’s tough enough to be President of the United States. If you look at what Edwards ran on, which is not negotiating with the special interests, taking away their power, that’s pretty different than the Obama model.”

The Edwards aide added that Obama’s lack of a health care plan with a “mandate” is a “tough hurdle for him to get over.” He added, however, that Edwards is much more in line with Obama on other issues.

So Edwards himself is precisely where his many supporters are – conflicted. And at its core, it has less to do with Obama than Clinton herself. On domestic issues, the fact is that Clinton’s stated positions are bolder, whether it be health care, housing or the environment. The big stumbling blocks are obviously foreign policy and the continuing influence of entrenched power (from which Obama may not be a dramatic improvement – that remains to be seen), but there’s also the question of follow-through on these progressive sounding domestic proposals. Clinton has not held fast in the face of GOP pressure on domestic issues – and famously, neither did her husband for eight years.

From the perspective of this former Edwards supporter, I can’t get past this simple fact; I don’t trust her to follow through any more effectively than her last go-around with health care. Obama may well collapse like a house of cards when the other side doesn’t want to hold hands and sing campfire songs – but on the other hand, he may not.

A little day-job pimping here, which I don’t like to do, but I don’t want GMD readers to miss out on the cool vlogging happening at the Vermont Natural Resources Council these days. At the beginning of every week VNRC staffers report on the progress of environmental legislation in the Statehouse. This week’s report was a quickie update, placed in the context of the Environmental Platform put together with input from most of the environmental groups in the state, as well as Rural Vermont. It also makes a pitch for the upcoming Environmental Lobby Day planned for next week. Very cool stuff, and worth a weekly check in…